| Lewis County |
Iron
was discovered along the Natchez Trace in present-day
One
of these tracts came into the hands of the partnership of John Jones, David
Steele, and Thomas Steele,
John Catron sold the Buffalo Ironworks and associated
lands to Felix A. Catron and George F. Napier for $18,000 in 1833, with the
understanding that certain improvements would be made to the property. When state geologist Gerard Troost visited
the site in October of that year, he noted that “here the ironworks of Judge
Felix Catron will be erected.” This proposed
facility would include a hillside furnace on Chief’s Creek, a new refining
forge, and a foundry. However, the
partnership experienced financial difficulties and Napier’s wealthy brother,
Dr. Elias W. Napier, assumed control.
In
1845, Dr. Napier conveyed half of the ironworks to his nephew, William C.
Napier. E.W. Napier died three years
later, leaving W.C. Napier as the sole proprietor of the operation. From then on, the enterprise was referred to
as the Napier Furnace. Run by water
power, the cold blast furnace had an output of 36 tons of pig iron per week and
the forges produced 35 tons of blooms.
Napier sought to consolidate his holdings in the mid-1850s and put the
Buffalo Iron Works and lands up for sale.
When no buyers appeared, he continued operations until the Civil War
began.
In
December 1867 losses incurred as a result of the conflict forced Napier to file
for bankruptcy. At some point the
furnace was rebuilt and put into blast again and the forge refitted. In 1873 Napier leased the facility to Ward,
Rains, and Co., who made iron intermittently there for the next seventeen
years.
After
Napier died in 1890, new owners took over and built a much large furnace stack,
had a branch railroad line run to the site, and eventually converted the
charcoal operation into one using coke.
By 1912, production had increased to over 100 tons per day. The raw material obtained locally was
supplemented by additional ore that was shipped in by rail from mines in
southwestern
Napier Mines
The
Napier Mines are located in the southeastern part of
This
raw material occurred in various size pockets surrounded by a loose mixture of
red clay, chert gravel, and sand. In
some places the overburden was only a few feet in thickness; in others it was
fifteen feet or more. No large embedded
rocks were found in association with the ore except at the base of the
deposits. Much of the ore was found
underneath heavy cover, where no trace showed at the surface, although some
outcroppings occurred at the head of gullies or along streams.
The
hardworking miners produced a high quality, low phosphorus dark brown limonite
used to manufacture pig iron at the Buffalo Iron Works. The desirable material was dug out by hand
with pick and shovel and transported to the furnace in wagons pulled by oxen
and mules until after the Civil War. As
time went on, various mechanized devices replaced much of the manual labor in the
different phases of the manufacturing process.
Employing this new machinery served to greatly increase the efficiency
and overall production at the furnace in the late 1900s. A railroad spur of the Louisville &
Nashville Railroad reached the industrial facility in the early twentieth
century and by 1912 the coke-fired operation was producing over one hundred
tons of pig iron per day. By then the
output of the Napier mines was insufficient to supply the necessary quantities
of ore, so additional shipments were brought in by rail from the Pinkney area
in southwestern
The
World War I years proved to be the last period of prosperity for the Napier
Ironworks and the furnace went out of blast in 1923. Today, the large open pit of the Napier Mine
can be viewed from a rest area located on the